Happy New Year!!

Anti-Tory song in race for No 1!

Captain Ska, the band behind this summer’s viral smash hit Liar Liar GE2017, a scathing attack on Theresa May and her government released just before the 2017 General Election, are joining the race for the Christmas charts with a new track called Sons and Daughters, that was officially released this week. 

Band member Jake Painter said the new song reflects a “new mood of hope” following what he described as “a disastrous election for Theresa May and the Conservative Party.” Adding: “It looks like it won’t be long before we see the end of this government and it couldn’t come soon enough. We hope the song can give a boost to all those who have suffered under this government and who want to see a better world.”

The new song highlights growing homelessness and inequality that has risen since the Conservative Party took power. It accuses the newspapers of “poisoning our minds” to sell their “rags of hate”. But the song goes on to claim “the unjust order’s crumbling, it’s time to take control,” and features a sample from Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn speaking at Glastonbury announcing that “another world is possible”.

As with Liar Liar, Sons and Daughters is released in conjunction with the campaign group The People’s Assembly Against Austerity. Profits from sales up until Christmas will be donated to the anti-austerity campaign group and used to buy supplies for food banks across the country. The People’s Assembly recently delivered the food supplies bought by the profits from Liar Liar to Downing Street in a protest the night before the Budget earlier this month.

Captain Ska are hoping to repeat some of the success of their 2017 election campaign, which saw them reach Number Four in the UK Official Charts and peak at Number One in the iTunes download charts despite not receiving any radio airplay and being censored from all the radio airwaves, including the BBC Radio 1 Official Chart Show and the BigTop40 download charts.

We have one week to get it in the top 40s, forcing the BBC to play it over the airways! Please download and share, share, share!!!!

You can download the song on all major platforms including iTunes, Bandcamp, Amazon and Spotify.

• Captain Ska

Trump declares war on the Arabs

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MILLIONS of people have taken to the streets throughout the world to protest against US imperialism’s decision to recognise Israel’s annexation of Arab East Jerusalem. Across the Arab world, from Morocco to the Gulf, demonstrators are denouncing Donald Trump, the chief American war-lord, and demanding action in solidarity with the Palestinians struggling against the barbarous Zionist regime. In occupied Palestine itself, some protesters have been killed and many more wounded in clashes with the Zionist police and security forces.

Moqtada al-Sadr, the militant Iraqi Shia cleric whose Mahdi Army led the Shia Muslim resistance to the American occupation, has called for the expulsion of all Israeli diplomats on Muslim soil and Lebanese cleric Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of the Shia resistance movement in Lebanon, has called for a united front “in the field” to support the Palestinian resistance against this “foolish decision”, which he hoped meant the “beginning of the end” of Israel.

The Zionists have always dreamt of dominating the Middle East and colonising Palestine. But their petty ambitions are not the driving force of US imperialism. The tail does not wag the dog, and Israel and the American ‘Zionist lobby’ does not dictate American foreign policy. They serve it. They provide American imperialism with a convenient alibi to play the role of ‘honest broker’ in the Middle East. They enable the feudal Arab oil princes to claim that the Arabs’ enemy is not imperialism as such but Israel and this supposedly all-powerful “Zionist lobby”, which pulls the strings in the USA. Trump has now revealed the true face of US imperialism to those venal Arabs who claimed that the Americans could push forward the “peace process”.

The tragedy of the Palestinian Arabs began when British imperialism occupied their land in 1918 and encouraged Zionist immigration. British imperialism sought to create a Zionist community that would prolong their occupation of Palestine indefinitely.

The Zionists helped British colonialism crush the Palestine Revolt in 1936. But in the immediate post-Second World War situation the Zionists seized the opportunity to push for a separate state of their own. In 1948 the British colonial mandate ended and the State of Israel was proclaimed. On that day the first Arab—Israeli war began. It has never ended.

The first war led to the expulsion of a million Palestinian Arabs from their homes by the Zionist regime. Those refugees and their descendants have never given up their right to return to their land. And this is the heart of the crisis in the Middle East that has led to five full-scale wars and continuing simmering conflicts.

Israel is economically and politically entirely dependent on American imperialism, and successive Israeli governments have existed to serve the needs of American imperialism in the region. And those needs are to weaken and divide the Arabs to ensure that the big oil corporations can continue their exploitation and plunder of Arab oil until it eventually runs out.

US imperialism believes it can call all the shots in the Middle East today. The imperialists believe that all resistance can be crushed by brute force and they still believe they can find willing Arab tools to do their bidding, hoist up the white flag and sign a surrender peace.

In the Middle East imperialist violence always leads to an equally violent resistance. Imperialism’s refusal to recognise this has led to the spiral of violence and terror that began in 1948 as a regional war to a conflict that now spans the whole world.

We call for the immediate and unconditional end to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Syria’s Golan Heights, to pave the way for a comprehensive peace treaty to end the conflict in the Middle East based on past United Nations resolutions. A lasting solution must be based on the right of return of the Palestinian refugees and an independent Palestinian state, with Israel giving up all territories seized since 1967, including Arab East Jerusalem.

The Indonesian Holocaust

by Mukhtar Rana  

first published in the New Worker in April 2007

IN SEPTEMBER and October 1965 one million Indonesians were killed and another million were arrested and tortured by Suharto, an Anglo-American puppet military dictator. They put him in power and kept him in power for 35 years until the people pulled him down.

The Anglo-American rulers claim themselves to be champions of the freedom of nations, freedom of speech and so on but history proves that in practice the attack other countries to loot their natural resources and to put into power their puppets.

 Iraq has a tremendous store of oil, only less than Saudi Arabia. On the excuse of bringing democracy to Iraq Bush and Blair have joined hands and so far around about one million human beings have lost their lives: Iraqis, Americans and British, civilians and armed forces.

 Bush thinks that by setting up a puppet regime he will be able to force them to sign an oil agreement which will enable a lot of profit to go to the American companies to make up for the war expenses and more.

 But in the case of Indonesia the Anglo-American imperialists did not even have the excuse of bringing democracy. On the contrary, they conspired against the democratically elected President Sukarno and replaced him with a military dictatorship. And during this period one million Indonesian socialists were killed and another million were imprisoned and tortured.

 The BBC was used to fool the people of Britain. It is interesting that the BBC representative Roland Challis gave a true picture of what was happening but the die-hard imperialist mangers of the BBC did not broadcast his report. On the contrary, they broadcast the false report sent by the British MI6.

 When I asked the BBC to apologise for the wrongdoing they claimed it was not the fault of the BBC but more due to the interference of the Government.

 As a matter of fact hypocrisy is the hallmark of British rulers; they claim they are a democracy whereas they are a monarchy. They claim it is a constitutional monarchy but they keep the people in the dark about the constitution and it is not written down.

 But to my amazement the communist and socialist organisations in Britain never bothered to raise their voices in protest on behalf of the Indonesian communists (PKI)  one of the biggest communist parties in the world.

 I am not sure if this was due to rifts among socialist countries and parties more opposed to each other than to the imperialists of Great Britain. Or were these organisations just socialist or communist in name only?

Even if, as part of the pro-China communist sphere, the Indonesian communists were not as wonderful as themselves, they were still human beings. Or could it be that the socialist and communist organisations in Britain were racist?

 Imagine if one million British or other European nationals had been killed or arrested and tortured, what would have been the attitude of the British communist organisations.  But luckily Amnesty International has a factual report about the Indonesian holocaust.

 The Jewish holocaust in Germany was well campaigned and rightly so, it should have been campaigned and Germany had to apologise and compensate the victims.

 But the Indonesians are not Europeans nor so well off and not powerful enough to launch a similar campaign. Nevertheless they are fellow human beings and I humbly think we must do something to seek justice or the victims of the Indonesian holocaust and I am personally committed to it.

 And I am seeking the help of others who feel that justice should be done to the victims of the Indonesian holocaust, whether socialist or not.

 And the first step I would request would be to let us have a small committee of committed people who are prepared to take up this very important task in a country where the rulers have hypocrisy as their hallmark.

 I request you as a supporter in this to seek a meeting with Tony Benn because he was a member of the cabinet that played a bloody and cruel role in the Indonesian holocaust. I asked him about it and he said that he condemned the cruelty but his fellow Cabinet members kept him in the dark.

 I thought he should have responded as a Cabinet Minister when he learned of the cruelty. Why does he not mention it in meetings now?

 I will appeal to socialist and communist leaders and other human beings who believe in human rights to campaign for justice for the Indonesian holocaust.

 To our good luck the Al Jazeera television service broadcasts incidences of cruelty and condemns the people responsible. I hope we may be able to attract the Al Jazeera TV to the cause of the Indonesian holocaust.

 And I would like to cooperate with friends to launch a campaign to tell the BBC to tell the truth about Indonesia if necessary by picketing the BBC. I would like to invite communist and socialist leaders to express their opinion on the Indonesian holocaust.

 We need to support a human rights group in Indonesia now that is campaigning to put the Anglo-American puppet dictator Suharto on trial.

 I recently met a United Nations Human Rights Commissioner at a War on Want meeting; I asked her about justice for the victims of the Indonesian holocaust. She replied that Britain and the US are doing their best to sabotage any efforts to campaign for justice through the UN.

 Indonesia is full of natural resources that the imperialists have been plundering. It has perhaps the biggest stores of natural gas in the world.

 But the plundering has led to a series of environmental disasters in the region. The tropical rain forest has been raided for hardwood timber and now they are being cleared to make way for plantations of palm oil. A few years ago the burning off of the natural forest caused massive smog pollution throughout the region. Thousands of species of wildlife are being endangered.

In the past the leaders of the US were heroes like Washington and Lincoln and the fathers of the constitution. But now they are just the enemy of humanity whose main purpose is to lust after the natural resources of other countries and impose puppets over them even if they have to kill millions of opponents in the process, as they did in Indonesia.

In Solidarity with the Palestinian people -- joint statement

Common Appeal of Communist and Workers’ Parties

in solidarity with the Palestinian people and against the unacceptable position of D.Trump 

The Communist and Workers’ parties that sign this common appeal:

1. Strongly condemn the unacceptable position of the President of the USA, D. Trump, through which the USA recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

2. This decision strongly undermines the just struggle of the Palestinian people against Israeli occupation, for the creation and recognition of a Palestine State at the borders of 1967, with East Jerusalem as its capital. Moreover, this decision, which constitutes a dangerous provocation against the peoples of the Middle East, is moving towards the direction of a more general conflagration in the region in order to satisfy the US imperialist plans. 

3. The EU, and in general the leaderships of its state-members, also bear responsibilities for this development, since they have been deepening their relations with the Israeli state, at the same time that the Israeli state oppresses and murders the Palestinian people.

4. We call upon the workers, all the peoples, to strengthen their solidarity with the Palestinian people to free the thousands of political prisoners from the Israeli jails; to tear down the wall of shame; to force the retreat of the Israeli army from all occupied territories since 1967, including the Golan Heights (Syria) and the Shebaa Farms (Lebanon); to end all blockades against the Palestinian people in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip; to campaign for the return of Palestinian refugees to their hearths, on the premises of the relevant UN resolutions; to continue the struggle for the recognition of an independent, sovereign and viable Palestinian state within the 1967 borders, with East Jerusalem as its capital.

Parties that sign the common appeal:

1. Communist Party of Albania
2. PADS, Algeria
3. Communist Party of Australia
4. Party of Labour of Austria
5. Communist Party of Azerbaijan
6. Progressive Tribune in Bahrain
7. Communist Party of Bangladesh
8. Communist Party of Wallonia-Brussels
9. Workers' Party of Belgium
10. Brazilian Communist Party
11. Communist Party of Brazil
12. New Communist Party of Britain
13. Communist Party of Chile
14. Socialist Workers' Party of Croatia
15. AKEL
16. Communist Party of Bohemia and Moravia
17. Communist Party In Denmark
18. Communist Party of Denmark
19. Communist Party of Estonia
20. Communist Party of Ecuador
21. Communist Party of Finland
22. Communist Party of Macedonia
23. German Communist Party
24. Unified Communist Party of Georgia
25. Communist Party of Greece
26. Hungarian Worker’s Party
27. Communist Party of India
28. Communist Party of India (Marxist)
29. Tudeh Party of Iran
30. Iraqi Communist Party
31. Communist Party of Ireland
32. Workers Party of Ireland
33. Communist Party (Italy)
34. Socialist Movement of Kazakhstan
35. Workers Party of Korea
36. Socialist Party of Latvia
37. Communist Party of Luxembourg
38. Communist Party of Malta
39. Communist Party of Mexico
40. Popular Socialist Party of Mexico
41. New Communist Party of the Netherlands
42. Communist Party of Norway
43. Palestinian Communist Party
44. Palestinian Peoples Party
45. Paraguayan Communist Party
46. Philippine Communist Party [PKP 1930]
47. Portuguese Communist Party
48. Romanian Socialist Party
49. Communist Party of Russian Federation
50. Russian Communist Workers Party
51. Union of Communist Parties - CPSU
52. Communist Party of the Soviet Union
53. New Communist Party of Yugoslavia
54. Party of the Communists of Serbia
55. South African Communist Party
56. Communist Party of the Peoples of Spain
57. Communist Party of Sri Lanka
58. Syrian Communist Party
59. Communist Party of Turkey
60. Communist Party of Ukraine
61. Union of Communists in Ukraine
62. Communist Party USA
63. Communist Party of Venezuela

Other Parties

1. Union of Communists in Bulgaria
2. Pole of the Communist Revival in France
3. Communist Party of Germany
4. Galician People's Union
5. Galician Movement for Socialism
6. Communist Party (Switzerland)
7. Party of Communists USA